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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Vintage Blue Dress for The Dressmaker's Do!

By the splendid power of the sewing machine, I command ye Jorth to turn this:

into this:

Mission accomplished, and just in time for The Dressmaker's Do!

What a fabulous night it was - one I'll remember forever. Sewists from all over came to join Nichola from Handmaker's Factory and I for a fun night of drinking, dining, and lots and lots of oohing and ahhing over each other's beautiful frocks - and trust me, there were gorgeous dresses and outfits aplenty on display that night. I am constantly in awe of the talent that fills our amazing sewing community!

And now for the dress - I had changed my mind over which vintage number I would make for the evening (no pressure, being the host and all) but finally decided on the blue one. And I'm glad I did, for it was the perfect marriage of comfort and glamour.

The pattern is a mail order one from 1950s that you could send away for and then receive from The Workbasket Magazine which was based in New York. I had never heard of the magazine, and just happened to stumble upon this gem one day when perusing Etsy for vintage patterns (which I do far too often!) There's a brief history of the magazine on this website - it's always sad to read about great magazines that disappear, but alas, that appears to have been The Workbasket's fate.

The pattern itself was very well written, well drafted and super easy to follow - however, I did end up wondering if the grading itself was accurate as I am definitely a 32 bust, but needed to bring the bodice in by 2 inches! However it wasn't a big drama, and I ended up with a fit I was happy with.

The back is cute, with a pleat at the back to stop the skirt from being the full wriggle. I'm so glad I decided to go with this vintage beauty, and can see myself getting a lot of wear out of her in the future, and maybe even making another few versions!

Once again, I'd like to thank all the fabulous ladies who came along - it was such a fun night, and Nic and I are already thinking about planning another!Project DetailsPattern - 9199 Mail Order pattern from The Workbasket MagazineFabric - Stretch cotton sateen from The Fabric StoreNotions - 35cm zipper, interfacing

Yep. Pretty gutted I couldn't be there thanks to a certain tiny terrorist (not really). Absolutely love your dress (and the photos I stalked on instagram from the night!) - in fact I just went across to the Vogue pattern website only to have a 'new' version of this pattern being sold as a Nicola Finetti dress! It's gorgeous, as are you in it :)

Before the Workbasket disappeared (my grandmother subscribed to it, and I did too up to the very end) it turned into a weird, birds-and-handcrafts magazine that mostly featured blurry photographs of the editor's many cats. Sad, sad, sad.

In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, our local newspaper featured one of those patterns every weekend. Then it was boughten by a national conglomerate and we got the same nothingness that the rest of their subscribers got. I have not subscribed to it for over 30 years now.